New Surface Pro 8 leak confirms unchanged design, Tiger Lake chip, and Xe graphics

[Redaktion]

Following a previous leak a month earlier, a new Surface Pro 8 prototype leak seemingly confirms that Microsoft's latest tablet will feature an unchanged design but will likely leverage the power of Tiger Lake and Xe graphics.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/New-Surface-Pro-8-leak-confirms-unchanged-design-Tiger-Lake-chip-and-Xe-graphics.503308.0.html

[Mothertrucker19]

I think having bezels is great, to anyone who likes to use it as a tablet.

[AlexB]

That's right!
I'm using both Surface Pro 2017 & iPad Pro 11 and Surface is much more comfortably to use as tablet then iPad.

[winston]

I think having a bigger screen is great, to anyone who likes to use it as a tablet. Less weight - more screen real estate!
If you can't properly implement palm rejection then maybe you shouldn't make tablets.

[DF]

I tend to think the bezels of the Surface Pro X are sufficient, but zero bezel is very annoying in a tablet.

[vertigo]

The smart thing to do would be to make the bezels as small as possible, in order to maximize screen size for a particular physical size, which is even more important for a tablet than a notebook, then have it automatically turn the outer ~1" into "dead" space, i.e. a digital bezel, as needed. And allow the user to both customize the size and manually enable/disable it. Then you get best of both worlds and let each user decide what works best for them. No idea why nobody has bothered doing that, especially since I'm pretty sure I saw something about it years ago.

As for the fact it's essentially unchanged, that's been the case throughout the history of the series. Each generation has been almost identical to the last, with the changes limited to slightly better internals and the rare minimal port changes. The only actual, useful difference with the SP8 vs my SP3, aside from the obvious of being faster (but still no Ryzen), is the USB-C port. That's it, one port. At least that somewhat fixes the biggest problem with the tablet, which, as with everything else, remains unchanged (of course): the proprietary charger. Myself and many others have had the cord fail rather quickly, which of course means the ability to charge is severely impaired or even lost entirely, and requires buying a new charger that will inevitably fail as well. They really need to abandon their proprietary charger and just replace the port with one or two additional USB ports (should ideally have two C and one to two A), especially since they refuse to redesign their charger. Seriously M$, how hard would it be to just make it more robust by adding some stress relief and make the wire between the brick and the tablet replaceable without having to replace the brick??

[Daelos]

I don't understand this wish to have zero bevels on handheld devices. It's much easier to use a tablet with bevels than one without. Easier to hold without getting your thumb over the screen and even swiping is a lot easier with bevels.

My anecdotal evidence of the charger is entirely different to yours. My SP3 charger is still perfectly fine and the magnetic lock has got me out of trouble several times so whilst I wouldn't mind being able to charge via USB-C, I think overall I prefer the current design. 

I'm not bothered what the outside looks like. I do care about the insides though and  I wouldn't say no to weight decrease.

[klemzo]

I own a surface pro 7, and I owned SP4 before that.
I kinda like the form factor as it is. Only wish would be to have a removable SSD, like the one on PRO X.
I had to change SP4 SSD when it died. Ever since then, it was giving me tons of problems (screen flicker). With removable disk that wouldn't have happened.